The stink bug, which is often an accidental guest of city apartments, is scientifically called a tree shield. This is a well-known pest of forest and garden plants, feeding on their juice and often leading to the death of the entire plant. The saying "Small bug and stinky" originates precisely from these insects, which are famous for their unpleasant odor.
Why do bed bugs smell and how do they use it?
Probably, many are wondering why bedbugs stink and why they need this very specific smell. In fact, these insects have a fairly well-developed sense of smell, which allows them to perceive and classify the smells emitted by their other brethren.
Not only stink bugs, but all bugs, even water bugs, have special glands located on the back of the cephalothorax. These glands contain an odorous liquid that the bug can use in case of danger. It is poisonous to other insects, can cause spasm, paralysis and even death, but does not affect the bug itself.
Bed bugs also use their smell to find and attract a suitable mate and scare away rivals for food or a female.
To understand how bed bugs smell, you need to imagine the smell of a little rotten cognac. This smell has become a real hallmark of bed bugs (they smell very intense in large clusters, but the smell of a few bugs is very difficult to smell).
But the most smelly bug is the wood shield bug. Its glands secrete a fluid that smells several times stronger than that of other bugs.
It is interesting…
The bed bug detects a person precisely by the smell of blood, which he very subtly captures. But the nest of the bugs themselves is helped by specially trained dogs, which are specially trained to smell the bugs. In the US, one such trained dog costs over $10,000 and is a good assistant to a professional exterminator.
Who are called stink bugs?
The stink bug (tree shield) has a body length of about 10-12 mm, an oval flat shape. As you can see in the photo, the color of the stink bug can vary from bright green to yellowish and brownish:
It is worth noting that many relatives of this species are quite bright and noticeable. Like all representatives of the genus, the stink bug has a piercing-sucking mouth apparatus, which allows it to pierce the surface layers of stems and leaves of plants and feed on their juices.
In the cold season, the tree shield bug falls into a kind of suspended animation, leaving it with the advent of spring. When a more or less warm temperature is established and sprouts begin to appear from under the ground, the stink bug goes in search of a permanent place of residence. Most of all, bedbugs like to be on raspberry and gooseberry bushes, often occupying larch and alder.
Immediately after moving to plant crops, stink bugs mate and lay eggs.After 2 weeks, larvae appear from the eggs, which also begin to actively feed and harm plants. The larvae are similar to miniature adults, however, before complete transformation, several molts await them with a complete change in the chitinous cover.
The stink bug in the apartment does not harm a person and is not a household parasite at all. It can accidentally fly into an open window in the summer, but it will never be able to breed in such conditions.
In order to get rid of an insect that accidentally got into the house, the easiest way is to throw it outside. It is worth noting that a dead or crushed stink bug will stink even more than a living one.
In order to prevent the penetration of the tree shield into the apartment, it is enough to use window mosquito nets.
Variety of stink bugs
The shield family has many representatives, each of which has its own characteristics. These stinky bugs are naturally rewarded with an original bright color and a stocky body covered with a dense shell.
A characteristic feature that helps distinguish stink bugs from other bugs is the protrusions on the cephalothorax, which are somewhat rectangular in shape. Due to these protrusions, the bug seems even more massive and dangerous, although in fact it is harmless:
The bug usually stinks "from fear", this is his natural defensive reaction. Although bugs are considered bitter and tasteless, birds are happy to eat them.
The photographs show several types of shield bugs that have a pronounced and strong "aroma":
- Palomena is green. This beautiful bug is remarkable in that it has a green color, which becomes reddish-brown by autumn.
- Red-footed shield. One of the largest representatives of the family (15 mm), its body has the color of old bronze.
- The shield is two-pronged. One of the few carnivorous bugs, it eats caterpillars with great pleasure and therefore is a useful insect.
- Shield berry. He prefers to eat those berries that are poisonous to people (henbane, wolfberry), without refusing, however, from currants with raspberries.
- Northern cruciferous bug. On its back you can see a very beautiful pattern, reminiscent of a frightening African mask.
Reproduction of shield insects and their harm to agriculture
The main food of the stink bug is the juices of various plants, among which there are many cultivated and specially cultivated by man. After the shield insect settles on the plant, it begins to die rapidly and ceases to bear fruit.Naturally, the infestation of fields and gardens with such bugs brings significant losses, since the affected plants either produce a smaller crop or do not bear fruit at all.
And further: Since bedbugs drink blood, can they carry AIDS or hepatitis from one person to another? Let's figure it out...
Each bug has a small proboscis with which it gets its food. This device helps them to easily pierce the stems, leaves or fruits of plants and drink the juice inside.
The saliva of stink bugs contains poison, which they release into plants at the end of the meal. It is he who causes decay. Predatory stink bugs pierce the skin of caterpillars in the same way and literally suck out their liquid contents.
Stink bugs lay their eggs directly on the plants where they parasitize. Usually the number of eggs in a clutch does not exceed 30-40, but this number may vary slightly depending on the species. All stink eggs have an original shape, similar to vessels or chests.
Defenders very quickly develop resistance to various poisons, with which they are trying to poison them in agriculture. For this reason, the manufacturers of insecticides themselves have to constantly improve the means used, trying to get ahead of the bugs at least a year or two and prevent them from completely destroying the crop.
It is interesting…
The development of genetically modified foods is partly due to problems in the fight against bedbugs: it is easier and faster to obtain a plant variety that is unsuitable for bedbugs than to breed the same variety through breeding or constantly developing new poisons.
The main wrecking of stink bugs occurs in gardens and orchards; at home they do not parasitize and do not multiply. At the end of summer, when bedbugs are looking for good conditions for wintering, they may accidentally fly into the apartment. The best (and humane) option would be to simply release the bug - it doesn't bite people and can't do anything dangerous.
It is necessary to fight these insects with insecticides only in agricultural conditions, where the tree shield threatens the crop of cultivated plants and its numbers are quite large.
Unique Footage: Bed Bugs Mating
But it's not true that these bugs do not bite people! Yesterday my mother was bitten in the neck. He says it was as painful as if bitten by a gadfly. This year we have an awful lot of these bugs, what is the reason for this? And in the garden they are bursting tomatoes, apples and pears!
Is this bite dangerous? Was brown.
The abomination is disgusting! I've been afraid of them since childhood! Now I'm in my 30s and have two kids, but these creatures still terrify me.If such a guest gets into the apartment, I get a real panic! I understand that such a reaction is too much, but I can’t help myself. I've always wondered if there are people out there who have a similar aversion to stink bugs?
There are people like that - I can't stand it either. And I have a lot of these creatures on the balcony, although there are mosquito nets. What to do, I have no idea. I'm looking forward to summer.
Yes, I'm a guy, 30 years old, and I'm terrified of them. I remember that my friends and I were sitting in the park, a bug fell on me from a tree, I had panic attacks with hysterics, then I squealed like the last snotty girl. Friends laughed at me, but I can’t do anything about it, they are very disgusting for me, although I eat cilantro))
When I see them in the apartment, I have a crazy panic ... I even woke up my husband at 12 at night, screaming that something was crawling over my head ... It was a bug. Brrr.
I'm terribly afraid of them. If, for example, a snake crawled into the apartment, I would ignore it)) But when I see this abomination, panic begins. Dad always threw them away, and now I live alone and everything is very problematic.
Yes, Yana, I'm afraid of them too. Fu, abomination!
I'm very afraid. I begin to shake, although you can just throw it out the window. It shakes me in disgust. Horror. I simply covered one such guest with a lid so as not to interfere with life. And then I can’t even go out to the balcony, I constantly look around.
Thank God, I'm not the only one)) I'll share my memories ... In the third grade, one boy classmate gave us girls a "dark" one: he took a stinker and ran after us around the class, poking her in the face. It was a nightmare! Now my husband is saving me from them, and he didn’t even try to scare me with them, for which I am very grateful to him.I live in Alma-Ata, and, unfortunately, we have a lot of this abomination, because. the city is “green” and the climate allows them to breed ((By the way, after reading the information about them, it seems to have become less afraid.
We are also in Almaty, and this year we have a lot of them in the apartment. It's the end of November, and they're all crawling.
And do not know what they do in the winter in the house? I don’t have bedding, but large gray ones, somewhere around 1 cm. In the fall, I threw 10 of them from the balcony. All windows have mesh, everything is closed. But until now, from time to time already for 3 months they appear like kamikaze with an enviable frequency one at a time and fly around the room or crawl through the windows. With what it can be connected?
I read the comments. I decided to advise, as I realized that they also interfere with life for many. For example, I quietly calmly (so as not to arouse suspicion in the bug) take a plastic bag and cover it with a sharp movement of my hand. The main thing here is to do everything quickly so that he does not understand anything, does not get nervous and does not start to stink. The main thing is not to crush it even in a bag, since from my personal experience it somehow manages to stink through a sealed bag. Then you need to use the same package, wrapping it up and turning it inside out, carefully twist the bug so that it does not come out. Well, then throw it away. I do this because I have grids on my windows and it’s problematic to throw it out into the street, flush it down the toilet - it can get out. And this seems to me the best option. Although my questions still stand. Since the bugs sometimes crawl at dusk in the morning through the windows and interfere with sleep. Where do they come from, if everything is clean and clogged with me - I’ll never know ...
Roman, tell me, where do you live, that they appear in your winter? Damn, you wouldn't wish this on your enemy... Thanks for the advice! On my glazed and insulated balcony, with closed plastic windows, they also appeared. Literally every day, one bug was pulled out, right up to frost. Somehow I got into a chest of drawers with children's things, sorting out my son's blouses, and among them he sits ... and moves his mustache ... I was already thrown back))
I also have a panic since childhood, most of all I do not like these creatures. Their very appearance is the most disgusting of all that can be.
And I just couldn’t see it in winter, but with the advent of spring, they, apparently, came out of hibernation and now there are a lot of them! I always suck them up with a vacuum cleaner, it's disgusting to touch them with my hands. I wanted to buy some kind of remedy for them, but, unfortunately, there is no such remedy, the sellers are generally shocked that they can be found in houses ... I mostly have these gray stinkers, and when they sit on clothes they are not noticeable, and only at the end of the day another person notices a stink on you - and you understand that she traveled on you throughout the day ... And this filth can fly ((
I live in the village and I have a real problem with this! Invasion, no other way. They used to fly down the street, but literally this autumn they covered the whole house and made their way inside. I thought they would disappear with the cold ... Yes, it was not there. All winter they flew around the apartment (I threw out no more than 10 pieces a day), and woke up with the onset of spring. Now at least 20-35 pieces per day. collect! And you can’t crush it (they stink), and throwing it out into the street every time is not an option. I came up with my own method: I took a small jar (from under the jam), poured detergent and water into it.Every time a beetle sits down somewhere, I open the jar and just bring it from the bottom. Usually they fall on their own, sometimes you have to somehow hook them up. This is the only way I am saved… There has never been such a misfortune. What else to do - I do not know. Maybe someone had a similar situation, share how you fought with this creature?
P.S .: Bed bugs are not bed bugs so that they don’t notice anything from the vegetation. They are dark brown-green in color. They live in the daytime mainly at the windows (they sit on the curtains / glass / window sill), in the evening they circle near the chandelier. Despite the fact that I collect in a jar, corpses are lying around everywhere (of course, I clean the house). Why are they falling? Because it’s not always a desire to go for a can - it’s easier to beat with a slipper.
Thanks Denis. Useful advice. And today I discovered a whole invasion of these stinking woods. I had to urgently close all the windows in the kitchen and the balcony (although since the spring they were open, barely drawn by the curtains). Despite this, they appeared with the same regularity with which I caught them and threw them away. I don't understand where they come from. Here, it seems, I cleared the entire balcony of them, after 2 hours I went out to smoke - I counted 6 pieces of new ones, without looking too closely! And they stink - guard, to the point of nausea!
Damn, I just took five brothers off the curtains during the day, and there are so many of them, they don’t do any harm. I take them into the toilet too, one, however, got out, but this did not save him. In short, they are peaceful insects, and you should not crush them.
I cut off the bottom of a poltorashka and collect them in a poltorashka ... If the bug sits on the ceiling, then I bring a poltorashka to it from below, he himself jumps into it. I just throw it out on the street and that's it. I live in the forest
Salute to everyone. When I came home, their mountain. I raided them for two days, they all died.Only when pickling at home can not be.
I saw a TV show, it turns out that these stinkers eat the Colorado potato beetle and its larvae! Therefore, they began to be imported specifically ...
At home I was going through things in the closet, and, therefore, I saw: crawling on a T-shirt, so small, well, about the size of a fly. And dark brown, even a little red. I don't know what it is.
Guys, this is just awful! Their, well, I mean STINK, just the army. I live in Sochi, don't tell anyone - everyone has a similar problem. Any advice on how to get rid of them? Recently, I generally fell into food, but I didn’t notice and figured it out, I thought I’d go crazy.
The best remedy for a headache is amputation of the head itself. Allegory, I hope, is clear?
We have had one of these for 2 years (or are they different?). We respect him (them). Firstly, there were no moths in the apartment and cobwebs. Secondly, when he flies around the chandelier and touches the ceiling, then such a melody turns out, it's nice to listen to. And he (they) does not climb to us.
We had whole hordes of these creatures at our dacha in Stary Oskol this summer. I'm terribly afraid of them. If anyone knows, tell me how to get rid of them?
We have the same problem, my mother did not sleep the whole night, she counted 30 pieces. I fought with them for several weeks, the decision to "capture" these creatures came by the "poke" method. We take a mop with a damp rag and bring it to the place where they fly, they obediently sit on the rag. Well, after that, as anyone likes it: let it out into the street, crush it, flush it down the toilet!
What to do if a child ate a bed bug?
The bug splashed in the child's eye. Isn't it dangerous?
I read how Roman catches bedbugs so as not to arouse suspicion ... 🙂 Puff a couple of times on the bug with perfume or something like that - the liquid will bind the wings, it won’t be able to twitch, and the problem will fly away - and then you can, causing any suspicion in this guest, calmly spend him in any humane way.
Apparently he bit me yesterday ((We also live near the forest. And in winter they were, but not enough, they slept in the corners.
They have been on the coast and, in particular, in Sochi for several years, especially for the last two years they have been just darkness! What you write here, one, two, 10 caught - about nothing. We have hundreds of them, no exaggeration. There are dozens of them in the house, however, we don’t have screens, here it’s difficult for these windows in rented housing, and the door is often wide open. In the summer I hang a curtain on the door and on the mesh window, but this does not help much. I don’t even catch them anymore, it’s too difficult, I vacuum every day, several dozen, then I wash the vacuum cleaner, the stench is worth it. The main thing is to cover the pots, otherwise the food will be spoiled. You dry things on the street, you bring them in, and there are a bunch of them sitting there. In the evening they poke at the light bulbs, we also collect them with a vacuum cleaner. They sit on the trees, there are a lot of them on the mulberry tree! Yesterday I bothered to put it in my mouth in the evening along with a mulberry tree, it released some kind of smelly caustic liquid, the corner of my mouth was numb, it still burns a little. There are rumors that they were brought in to eat caterpillars, which the Americans brought to us in the boxwood grove (they have already destroyed a lot of boxwood), but these are only rumors. And a lot of hornets too. Scorpios are small and we are not afraid and do not kill them. And hornets are very dangerous.
Yes, the boxwood was badly damaged, has not yet grown.
I got bitten yesterday too. The bite site turned red and does not go away, as if he had bitten his teeth.
It doesn't stink, it smells like cilantro.
I remember as a child I lived in a private house. Small town in Belarus. We had a garden. Well, there are strawberries, raspberries, greens. Since childhood, I can not stand these bedbugs. I'm afraid of their terrible vile appearance. So. The toilet was outside, everything was as it should be. And to get there, you had to go through the garden. That's horrible. There were a lot of them. Every trip to the bathroom ended in hysterics. It was also summer, my legs were bare. Sometimes I stood nearby for 30 minutes and did not know how to get through. As a result, she just stupidly ran with all her strength. As I recall, it's funny. And then it was scary, really. About the smell. It was business. I was walking down the street, and this heavy, smelly artillery was flying towards me. He sits on my neck, and without thinking, I smeared it with my hand. Ahahahaha. I stand and don't know what to do. She ran home and quickly washed. I will never forget this stench of rotten moonshine 🙂
Here people write that they fly into houses, it is impossible to live. I lived in a small wooden house. At the same time, there were no double-glazed windows. Don't know. I never saw them in the house. And thank God. The house was my fortress and protection from these monsters 🙂
I have been living in Italy for more than 10 years, first in Genoa, there weren’t any near the sea, and then I moved to Verona, and there are unrealistically many of them outside the city. Probably because the climate is more similar to ours (I myself come from Sumy, Ukraine, but I also know Russia well and have many relatives there). And I have already seen May beetles here - they are just real cuties 🙂
There are heaps of them in Almaty in the summer. I didn't see any green ones, only brown ones. I live on the first floor, there is a lot of greenery, they accumulate on the windowsill, they lie with their paws up. They stink terribly, I don’t know what to do, except to wait for winter ...